Astronomical price for car

A car said to have once belonged to the first man to stand on the moon has passed in at auction for more than $US250,000.

The beaten-up, blue 1967 Chevrolet Corvette, described by the seller as ‘‘the ultimate Corvette barn find’’, was listed on eBay last week with the claim that it was bought earlier this year from a NASA employee who had bought the car from Armstrong.

After 73 bids, and a tally of $US250,090, the car had still not met the seller’s reserve price by the time the auction ended this weekend.

‘‘I had tried to buy the Corvette for the past 30 years with no luck until a phone call led to the purchase recently,’’ the buyer said on his auction listing on online auction website eBay.

Neil Armstrong.

‘‘As can be seen in the pictures the car has 30+ years of dust and has had fender flares crudely added by the owner during its time in storage.

‘‘The only thing that has been done to the car since I purchased it is to get the motor running where it can be moved about the garage,’’ the listing reads.

Debate has since raged over whether the car really belonged to Armstrong - Corvettes were routinely given to astronauts for $1 a year as part of a lease program developed at a Melbourne, Florida-based car dealership to build the sports car’s profile by linking it to the US space program.

Some Corvette aficionados have poked holes in the car’s authenticity, claiming that it lacks the space program decals, or even the right bonnet, pointing to photos of the car used by Armstrong.

One even pointed out that the car lacks the ‘‘My other car is a Saturn V’’ bumper sticker.

The hunt for cars once owned by famous people knows no bounds, with a 1990 Volkswagen Golf linked to German Chancellor Angela Merkel selling in Europe last week for more than €10,000 ($A13,000).

That pales in comparison with a 1999 VW Golf once owned by Pope Benedict XVI, which fetched more than $US250,000 when it sold more than six years ago - a big windfall for a car that originally cost about $30,000.